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Tuesday, April 14, 2015

How To Plant Tomatoes The Right Way

Some more vegetable gardening tips since it is spring!! When you are planting tomatoes in pots or right in the garden, here is how to plant tomatoes the right way.

Whether you are planting tomatoes from seeds and starting them in containers or you buy tomato starts from the nursery, here is how to grow the best tomatoes ever. I think I heard this tip on a gardening show many years ago, but I always have wonderful tomatoes every year from this planting method.

First, when you dig your hole you want to really dig more of a trench about a foot long. Loosen the soil and amend the trench heavily with compost and you can also throw in a slow release fertilizer. I use an organic one from the nursery.

Next, strip off most of the little leaves and branches along the stem carefully. I snip them. Remove them up to where the main plant begins. Now lay your tomato more horizontal along the trench and then carefully angle up the top portion of the plant and fill in with the soil tamping to hold the tomato plant upright. This is easier with younger tomatoes. With a more mature plant you would have to be careful not to damage the stalk by bending so use caution.

You can see in the picture above how little of the main stem is above the soil. This allows more roots to grow along the entire stem below soil giving you a stronger, more vigorous plant.

Here is proof. Look at this beefsteak tomato I picked from the garden last year. Almost covered my entire hand. You will have lots of tomatoes for all your summer recipes. Here are some of our favorite ways to prepare all those summer tomatoes.

About 35 years ago we lived in a small community and we were planting our garden. A man who lived up the street was walking by and stopped to chat. He was retired, but had worked at the Univ of Wisconsin Ag dept all of his working life, and he told us, and showed us, how to plant tomatoes correctly. THIS is exactly how he showed us!! We have always had an excellent crop. He told us the plant will pull itself up towards the sun and create a much stronger root system this way. :-)

Hello, so I just bought some Roma, grape, and beefsteak tomatoes for my first garden. Just wondering, when I lay them in sideways, am I completely covering it back up with soil or am I just covering the roots?

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